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* * *

Rafiel got in his truck thinking that while the woman was a shifter, and seemed apparently harmless, yet he couldn't get involved with her. For one, the moment she found out he was a lion shifter . . . He shook his head. Cat and dragon might be one thing—and he still wasn't sure how that would play out in the end—but cat and mouse would be insane. It would require that he lose his marbles completely.

He got his cell phone from his pocket and dialed McKnight's cell phone. "Hey, Dick," he said, using McKnight's diminutive in an attempt to forestall more protests.

The answer from the other side of the phone had almost as much of a squeak as that of Ms. Gigio's, "Yes?"

"So . . . have you done the platform?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah. We . . . I brought a team over." He spoke with such haste, such obviously tumbling guilt, that it was obvious to Rafiel that he had found something.

"What did you find?"

"We . . . uh . . . I found . . . that is . . . Michelle and I found a couple of used condoms, tied up, in the planters. We will have them processed and . . . and get back to you with the results."

"Thanks, McKnight. Do," Rafiel said, keeping the amusement, but not the forcefulness out of his voice.

He hesitated for a moment, starting the car away from Ms. Gigio's home. Where would he go now? He was dying to know what was happening with those condoms. Well . . . at least Lei had told the truth about that. Maybe.

Getting the phone again, he said, "Dick, can you give me the address of all of the aquarium's male employees? Female, too, while you're at it."

McKnight could. Or at least he could after much hemming and hawing and getting hold of the aquarium records from someone. He cleared his throat, nervously, and in a reedy voice gave Rafiel three male names—John Wagner, Carl Hoster and Jeremy Fry—and three female names—Suzanne Albert, Lillian Moore, Katlyn Jones—and addresses, all within a mile of the aquarium in the area where old Victorians had been converted into apartments, amid a lot of other, mostly cinder-block apartments, of fifties vintage. It mostly housed college students. And they were all close enough to the diner too.

Rafiel was feeling uneasy enough about Tom and Kyrie and whatever their little spat might have devolved into. Some part of him told him that, interested party or not, suspicious or not, he should have stayed around and refereed their argument. They were both younger than him, and both of them had far less experience of relationships.

Not that I can tell them a lot about relationships, Rafiel thought. After all, I am the master of the love them and leave them.

"Rafiel?"

He'd forgotten he'd left the cell phone on, and now looked at it in puzzlement, thereby putting his brakes on a little too late for the red light ahead. He hit a patch of ice as he braked and slid through the intersection to the glorious accompaniment of the horns of cars which swerved to avoid him. Good thing I'm a policeman, he thought as he took a deep breath, made sure he wasn't about to shift—his nails looked the same size, and there was nothing golden or furry about his hands—and said, "Yeah, McKnight?"

"Are you going to go talk to these people?" McKnight asked.

"That's the idea," Rafiel said.

"In this weather?"

"Well, all the more chance to find them at home, right?" Rafiel said, and hung up before McKnight would actively and loudly worry about his life or his safety or something.

Then he pressed one of his preset dials, and rang up The George.

 

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Framed